The invention relates to transmission communications management.
In an interactive broadcasting system, digital information may be encoded into broadcast television signals and transmitted to a home personal computer that has been configured to receive the information. A technology developed for transporting such a combination of digital information and broadcast TV signals is the Intel® Intercast® technology.
The Intercast® technology includes three parts: the broadcast headend, the transport, and the platform. At the broadcast headend, such as a television studio, broadcasters may create digital data such as Web pages, multimedia applications or other data files. The digital data is then assembled into packages and scheduled for insertion into the broadcast signal so that the broadcast signal can carry the TV audio, TV video, and digital data.
The combined digital and TV broadcast signal may be transmitted over a number of different transports, including regular television airwave broadcasts, satellite transmissions, cable transmissions, digital TV transmissions, or computer networks such as local area networks (LANs) or wide area networks (WANs).
At the receiving end, or the platform, which may be a TV-enabled personal computer or a set-top box, the broadcast signal (with inserted digital data) is received and processed for display. A TV tuner appropriate to the transport is used for receiving the broadcast signal. Data processing is then preformed by video capture and decode circuitry, which may be integrated with the tuner that receives the regular TV signals.
The different transports that are able to transmit such broadcast signals have different transmission rates and different protocols. Thus, a need arises for broadcast equipment that is capable of supporting multiple broadcast transports.